27/04/2019 - Education | Mainstorming

IAS Parliament 6 years

KEY POINTS

· The core academic institutions—the SCERT (State Council of Educational Research and Training) and the DIET (District Institute for Education and Training)—are understaffed and skills like curriculum design or assessment design and analysis are often missing.

· Additionally, in several states, field offices have vacancies as high as 50%. We need to fill these vacancies with the right people who have the relevant skills.

· Maharashtra, for example, has filled SCERT and DIET vacancies by selecting and training qualified teachers from within the system through a competitive process. They have also instituted a stringent annual performance review mechanism.

· Beyond vacancy filling, we need to make sure that individuals across the organisation have the relevant skills to work with data and technology or planning and performance management, which are becoming increasingly relevant.

· This will require rewriting job charts, mapping out the skills needed, providing targeted training and, moreover, on-the-job support.

· Monitoring Information Systems built on real-time, accurate databases. A well-planned MIS can drastically reduce the amount of time spent on repeated data collection and paperwork.

· With process automation, for example, head teachers can spend less time on paperwork (in one state, we saw as many as 40 registers required at the school point) and more time mentoring teachers—and the same is true at all levels of the system.

· In Jharkhand, with real-time school monitoring data now available, the state can identify the bottom 2,500 schools and provide targeted support.

· In Odisha, school staffing norms are being revisited and the availability of school-wise enrolment data is enabling the state to accurately assess the financial implications of the changes.

· It will require us to take a comprehensive approach at scale, rethinking traditional delivery models and adopting technology at an unprecedented pace.

· It will require changing the way we manage public finances and making education budgets more flexible. It will require the public sector to become far more agile in its pace of decision-making.

· All of this will need political will to do and a coming together of the bureaucracy, civil society and the private sector. But the results can be a tangible shift in the quality and competitiveness of our public schools.